Foundations of Anthroposophy

Foundations of Anthroposophy: Lecture I: Foundations of Anthroposophy

I

FOUNDATIONS OF ANTHROPOSOPHY

I
wish to give you in three lectures a survey of what
Anthroposophy has to say concerning the Human Being and his
relation to the Universe. The universe and man are undoubtedly
the two most important problems, for they embrace every
question dealing with science and life, every problem of
greatest and smallest importance.

It
lies in the nature of these problems that in regard to these
things I must limit myself to the anthroposophical horizon,
that is to say, to the things connected with the great
life-problems of human existence which transcend the knowledge
gained through sensory perception and which lie beyond the
sphere of ordinary science.

In
regard to the human being, self-knowledge is undoubtedly a
problem which must appeal to us most of all. For in order to
gain a foundation and a firm standpoint in life, we must first
obtain a conception of our own nature. And it must be said that
at all times people have sought to gain a knowledge of the
universe, for they knew that the mysteries of the world's
evolution are connected with man's own being; they knew that
they could only learn something about man's being by seeking to
know what the universe is able to give them, the universe of
which the human being forms part.

Moreover, it cannot be denied that in connection with a
knowledge of man and of the universe modern people show a deep
interest for everything which transcends ordinary science, and
we may say that innumerable attempts are now being made to
transcend the spheres of ordinary science in order to
investigate what lies beyond birth and death, beyond the world
which can be fathomed by ordinary sense-perception and by the
understanding which is based upon it.

In
recent times we can observe above all that there are scientific
investigators who in many ways endeavour to transcend the
spheres indicated above, and as an introduction let me mention
a few striking conceptions of modern investigators, examples
which prove that the keen interest in the problems which will
form the subject of my three lectures really exists, but which
prove at the same time how very difficult it is, even in the
case of people well grounded in science, to penetrate into the
sphere of the soul and of the spirit. As I do not wish to speak
in abstract terms, let me proceed immediately from concrete
examples.

A
German scientist who worked very hard to discover how to
penetrate into the super-sensible nature of the soul, and
how to investigate the influence exercised by the soul's
super-sensible nature upon the body's physical nature, tried to
give many examples taken from his medical and scientific
experience, showing the soul's influence, the influence of an
unquestionably psychic essence upon the body. A marked example
contained in one of the books written by this physician and
scientist named Schleich, who was personally well known to me,
is the following. He describes a patient, who came to him in a
great state of excitement, because in the office he had pricked
his skin with an inky nib. The doctor could ascertain that it
was quite an insignificant scratch. But the patient was under
the delusion that this prick with an inky nib had given him a
blood poisoning and that he would have to die unless his hand
was amputated, and he begged the doctor to amputate his hand,
his arm as quickly as possible.

The
doctor could only tell him to be calm, that he would be quite
well again in a couple of days and that there was nothing to be
afraid of. As a responsible doctor he had to tell him this and
could not, of course, amputate his arm.

But
the patient was not satisfied He went to another doctor who
told him exactly the same thing and also refused to amputate
his arm. Schleich was nevertheless nervous, for he was
acquainted with soul-moods, and so he enquired the next day how
the patient was feeling and he was told that the man had
died.

The
autopsy did not reveal any trace of blood-poisoning, or similar
symptoms. This was out of the question. Yet the patient had
died.

In
connection with this case, Schleich remarks: Death caused by
radical auto-suggestion.

The
patient had the fixed idea that he had to die; it was an
extremely radical auto-suggestion and he really did die under
its influence.

This is the statement of an investigator well acquainted with
all the natural-scientific methods, with all the medical
methods. He reports this case in order to show a purely
psychical influence, i.e. the influence of a thought, upon
bodily processes, an influence showing, according to Schleich,
that death set in as a result.

Schleich mentions many other cases, less marked and radical, in
order to prove that it is possible to observe the soul, living
in thoughts, feelings, sensations and will-impulses, and that
the soul can really influence the body. He wishes to describe,
as it were, the influence of the super-sensible upon the
physical.

Another case is described by a far more conspicuous scientist,
by Sir Oliver Lodge. Sir Oliver Lodge lost his son Raymond in
the last war. He fell on the Belgian-German frontier, and
Oliver Lodge, who had long ago felt the inclination to build a
bridge leading from the sensory-natural-scientific sphere to
the super-sensible sphere, was deeply stirred by the loss
of his beloved son. Through many incidents, which are not
directly connected with this matter and which I need not
relate, he was induced to use the mediumistic power of a
certain person, in order to enter into connection with the
departed soul of his son, Raymond.

When such a case arises in ordinary spiritistic circles, it is
not necessary to consider it seriously, for one knows how
unscientific these meetings are, and how amateurishly and
unscientifically such cases are judged and investigated in
them. But the matter must be taken more seriously when we have
to do with one of the greatest of modern scientists, with a man
so thoroughly at home in the sphere of external, natural
scientific research and so well acquainted with scientific
methods. That is why Oliver Lodge's book on his spiritual
intercourse with his son Raymond, made such a deep impression
on the world.

On
reading this book, we immediately feel that it is written by a
man who does not approach the investigation of such things
superficially, but by a conscientious and responsible
scientist. Even in other things, which I will not mention here,
one can see that Oliver Lodge applies to this sphere the same
way of thinking, the same scientific method which he is
accustomed to apply in his physical laboratory. The real facts
which he relates, and which, one might say, rightly produced
such a deep impression upon all those who read Sir Oliver
Lodge's book, are as follows :

Through the medium in question, Oliver Lodge and a few other
people who were present at the seances, were told that his son,
that is, the soul, the spirit of Oliver Lodge's son, wished to
describe a scene enacted on the Belgian-German frontier shortly
before his death, and the medium related that Raymond Lodge had
a photograph taken and described this act in detail. It was
expressly stated that two photographs were taken; these two
photographs were carefully described and attention was drawn to
the fact that upon the second photograph Sir Oliver Lodge's son
had a somewhat different pose from that on the first one.

When these communications were made in London through the
medium (Sir Oliver Lodge describes it so that one can really
see — I emphasize this expressly — that he took
every possible scientific precaution), at the time when these
experiments were made, no one in London knew anything about
these photographs, nor that they had been taken. After
examining all the facts, Sir Oliver Lodge came to the
conclusion that if this message were true, it could only come
from his son, from the departed son himself.

In
fact, after two or three weeks, the photographs which no
one had seen before really arrived in London. They corresponded
with the description given by the medium, or, as Sir Oliver
Lodge believed, with the description given by the soul of his
son. Even a scientist could see in this fact, to begin with,
one might say, “experimentum cruris.”
Nobody in London could possibly have seen the photographs. It
appeared that the description was correct even in regard to the
fact that two photographs were taken and that the second one
shows a difference. The photographer had taken the photograph
of the group which included Raymond Lodge twice, and for the
second photograph he had shifted his camera a little. All this
had been described exactly. A conscientious scientist could not
find the slightest reason for questioning the medium's
communication.

The
two radical cases I have described to you, show that the
longing, the great desire of unquestionably serious modern
scientists lead them to seek a knowledge which goes beyond the
facts revealed by ordinary external scientific research.

But
one who speaks of the foundations of anthroposophical research,
one who speaks from an anthroposophical standpoint, must draw
attention to the fact that the methods of this investigation
differ from those adopted even by such serious minded
scientists. For, in regard to a scientific way of thinking and
a scientific mentality the foundations of anthroposophical
research (I hope that my three lectures will make things clear
to you from every aspect) should be stricter and more
conscientious than any other, even in comparison with such
strict scientists as the above. And one who ventures to
criticize such great scientists is perhaps first called upon to
judge and to explain the far greater certainty constituting the
foundation of Anthroposophy, which is so often accused of
advancing fantastic notions; this certainty given by
Anthroposophy is far greater than that transmitted by the most
conscientious scientific investigators of the present time. In
order to indicate the critical attitude, the earnest and truly
scientific character of Anthroposophy and its foundations, let
me first bring forward the critical objections which can be
raised against the scientific interpretations given in
the two above mentioned examples.

Let
me now begin with these things, for in connection with to-day's
subject my last two lectures already contained many
[25thNovember.The
Reality of the Higher Worlds.26th November.Paths to the Knowledge of Higher Worlds.] explanations,
so that the essential facts are known to the great majority of
those who are now present; allow me therefore briefly to
illumine the things already explained to you from another
angle.

The
following objection must be raised in regard to Schleich and
his case of “death through auto-suggestion.” Please
accept this, to begin with, as a simple critical objection
showing how matters might also be viewed! Let us suppose that
the man who pricked his hand with an inky nib and who believed
that he had blood poisoning, really had some unknown inner
defect, so that sudden death through a natural cause would have
arisen in any case during the night after the accident. Such
cases of sudden death really exist. On the other hand, all
those who seriously investigate what can be achieved by a
strengthening and intensification of the human cognitive
powers, in the direction which I tried to indicate during the
last few days, know that certain undefined soul-forces may be
driven to a special climax through some abnormal conditions,
through — one can really say — abnormal
pathological conditions. Such cases undoubtedly exist and
are critically described in books, so that everyone can test
them, whenever the human will (and we shall see how this is
possible) becomes transformed and thus attains cognitive power.
Since the human will is directed towards the future, it is
able, under certain pathological conditions, to have a
premonition of events which prepare themselves, of events which
will take place in the future out of the whole connections of a
person's life. It is a matter of indifference whether we call
this a foreboding, or whether we give it any other name. But it
is a fact that under certain pathological conditions of a
lighter nature, which do not clearly appear in the form of
illness, a person may foresee, in the form of a picture, that
he will, for instance, in fourteen days be thrown from his
horse. All precautions will be useless, for he cannot perceive
the accompanying circumstances. He has simply had a foreboding,
he has simply foreseen an event about to take place.

The
critical objection which must be raised by one who really knows
the spiritual connections of man in a deeper sense, is that in
the case of Schleich's patient, the factors which brought about
his sudden death on the following night, can simply have
already existed and that he had had an inner presentiment of
his approaching death. Such a presentiment need not be fully
conscious; it can quite well remain in the subconscious
depths of the soul. But its influence upon consciousness
manifests itself in symptoms which can be designated as
nervousness and restlessness. One does all manner of
unpremeditated things, and it is quite possible to prick
one's finger with an inky nib under the influence of the
nervousness arising from such a premonition. The person in
question therefore simply knew unconsciously (let me use
this paradoxical expression) that he would die. He did not
clothe this in the statement that he had a presentiment of his
death, but he grew nervous, pricked his hand with the nib and
clung to the belief that he would have to die through blood
poisoning. Thus it was not a case of death through
auto-suggestion, but the man in question had had a presentiment
of his coming death and all his actions were determined by
this. In that case Schleich simply mistakes cause and effect,
there is no auto-suggestion, as Schleich supposes, to the
effect that a conscious thought exercised so strong a
suggestion that death ensued; but death would have arisen in
any case and the death-presentiment was the cause of the
patient's fixed idea.

You
see, even such things can be viewed critically, if another,
undoubtedly possible thing is borne in mind; namely, that
certain subconscious conditions which always exist in the
soul, faintly rise to the surface of ordinary
consciousness, but masked. In the unconscious depths of
the human soul many conscious manifestations have quite a
different aspect, and ordinary consciousness simply gives them
a different interpretation.

Let
us now turn to the other case, that of Sir Oliver Lodge.
Undoubtedly you are all acquainted with the phenomenon known as
“second sight.” Through an intensification of the
human cognitive forces, it is possible to perceive things which
cannot be perceived by the ordinary sound senses; it is
possible, as it were, to see things in a way which is not in
keeping with the ordinary conditions of environing space, so
that this perceptive faculty can, so to speak, transcend space
and time. This fact supplies the critical objection which must
be raised even against the conscientiousness of an Oliver
Lodge. For Sir Oliver Lodge uses this experimentum
crucis in order to prove that his son's soul and none other
must have spoken to him from the Beyond. But those who know the
fine and intimate way in which second sight works, and that
under certain abnormal conditions the intimate character of
such a perceptive capacity is really able to overcome space and
time (mediums always possess this perceptive faculty, though in
the great majority of cases this is not to their
advantage) those who are acquainted with this fact, also
know that a person endowed with second sight can go to the
point of giving a description as in the case of Sir Oliver
Lodge's son, a description which may be characterised as
follows: —

The
two photographs arrived in London two or three weeks after the
séance. The attention of the people who were present at
the séance was turned towards these pictures, that is to
something pertaining to the future. And this fact
pertaining to the future could be interpreted by a kind of
second sight which the medium possessed.

In
that case, it can no longer be said that Raymond Lodge's soul
shone supersensibly into the room where Sir Oliver Lodge was
making his experiments. Here, we simply have to do with
something enacted completely upon the physical plane, that is
to say, with a vision of the future surpassing the ordinary
perceptive capacity, but which does not justify the belief that
a soul from beyond the threshold manifested itself in the
séance room.

I
mention these two examples and the objections against them, in
order to awaken in you a feeling for the conscientiousness and
for the critical attitude of anthroposophical spiritual
research. The spiritual investigation practised in
Anthroposophy does not at first proceed from any abnormal
phenomena (the two last lectures proved this), but from
completely normal conditions of human life, which appear
in the forces of cognition, of the will and of feeling.
Anthroposophical research seeks to develop these forces
which enable one to gain a knowledge of the super-sensible
worlds, in order to be, as it were, inwardly entitled to this
knowledge, and in order to gain the true conscientiousness
required in a training which strengthens thought.

Meditation exercises, such as those recently described to you,
strengthen our thought to a high degree, so that our way of
thinking becomes just as alive and intensive as sensory
perception. Then there are the will exercises which I have
already mentioned to you, and which will be characterised more
fully in these lectures. Will-exercises require above all an
intensive observation of normal life, we must become quite
familiar with the conditions in which we normally live.

A
short time ago, a scientist published a brief resume of the
science of Anthroposophy inaugurated by me. This man is in no
way a blind believer. He briefly recapitulates what I have been
giving you as Anthroposophy, a material which already
constitutes a voluminous literature. He recapitulates it, at
the same time declaring that he is neither for nor against
Anthroposophy, but then he makes a remark which has the
semblance of being that of a strong opponent, although the
author is neither an opponent nor a follower. I must confess
that this cutting remark pleased me exceedingly, particularly
if seen in the light in which Anthroposophy appears in
comparison with the rest of modern culture. The writer remarks
that in the light of ordinary consciousness many of my
statements produce an irresistibly comical effect. I must admit
that I like this remark for the following simple reason: When
things are mentioned, such as Sir Oliver Lodge's case, or
the other case reported by me, people prick up their ears,
because in a certain way this appeals to their sensationalism
and because it differs from what they are accustomed to
hear.

This does not seem irresistibly comical to them. But when an
Anthroposophist is obliged to establish a connection with
altogether normal and human things, with human memory, or with
the ordinary expressions of the human will, and explains that
through certain exercises human thought may be intensified and
that through self-education the will can be developed so that
one changes and is able to penetrate as a transformed human
being into the super-sensible world — and because he uses
ordinary words designating things which ordinarily surround us,
words which people do not like to apply to anything else
— then he may produce an “irresistibly comical
effect.” Many things therefore have such an irresistibly
comical effect on people who only wish to apply the words to
things to which they are applied in ordinary life. To an
anthroposophical spiritual investigator, such views on
Anthroposophy frequently appear like a letter which some one is
supposed to read, but instead of reading it begins to make a
chemical analysis of the ink with which it is written. I must
confess that many statements on Anthroposophy really appear to
me as if a person were to analyse the ink used in writing a
letter, instead of reading it.

The
essential point in the foundations of Anthroposophy is that one
starts from completely normal human experiences, that one has a
good knowledge of modern scientific truths, of modern ethical
life, and develops these very things more intensively, so that
one can penetrate into the higher worlds through an
intensification of the cognitive forces which already exist
less intensely in ordinary life and in science. One must of
course have an understanding for these ordinary human
experiences. One must pay attention to thoroughly ordinary
normal experiences, which, however, we are not very much
interested in observing carefully. Things must, so to speak,
become enigmas and problems. Although they form part of
ordinary life, one easily fails to see their enigmatic
character. And here already begins for many people the
“irresistibly comical effect,” that is, when one
begins to say: The questions connected with man's alternating
conditions of waking and sleeping must above all be looked upon
as enigmas.

During our life, we continually change over from the condition
of waking to that of sleeping, but we do not take much notice
of this pendulum of life, swaying between the conditions of
waking and sleeping. The strangest theories have been advanced
in this connection. I might talk for a long time, were I to
mention some of these theories relating to the alternating
conditions of waking and sleeping. But let me mention only one,
the most well-known and usual one, namely that one simply takes
for granted that when the human being is awake he gets tired
and when he is sufficiently tired goes to sleep, and that sleep
in its turn counter-balances fatigue. Sleep (this can be
described in one or the other way, more or less
materialistically) eliminates the causes of fatigue.

I
should like to know if radical supporters of this theory can
really say that fatigue is the cause of sleep, when for
instance, they observe a person who really has no cause
whatever for getting tired during the day — let us say, a
fat gentleman living on private means, who goes to a more or
less solid concert or to a lecture, not late in the evening,
but in the afternoon, and who falls asleep not after the first
five minutes, but after two minutes!

These things at first may really present a slightly comical
aspect, but if they are viewed from every side, their earnest
enigmatic character must stand before our soul. Those who
believe that the alternating conditions of waking and sleeping
can be studied with the aid of the ordinary scientific methods
applied to-day, will never reach a satisfactory solution of
this problem. Even such completely normal questions of life
cannot be approached with the ordinary cognitive forces, but
with a thinking intensified by meditation, concentration
and other soul-exercises described in my book Knowledge of
the Higher Worlds and in my Outline of Occult
Science, and also with transformed forces of the will.

What is attained when we try to strengthen thought by earnest
meditation? I already explained to you that meditation must
begin by strengthening thought to such an extent that it
becomes a transformed memory. Our ordinary memory contains
inner pictures which reproduce the experiences of our ordinary
earthly life since our birth. Through memory, the picture of
some real event stands before the soul, and that our soul-life
is healthily connected with the external world in which we
live, is guaranteed by the fact that we do not somehow mix up
things fantastically, but that our memory-pictures indicate
things which really existed.

We
must therefore come to the point of being able to place before
our soul, in the imaginative understanding described in the
last few days, pictures which resemble our ordinary memory
pictures. These pictures simply arise by our more and more
bringing meditation concepts into our consciousness, and thus
strengthening the soul-faculty of thinking, just as a muscle is
made strong through exercise. We must reach the point of
strengthening thinking to such an extent that it can live
within its own content, in the same way in which we ordinarily
live within our sense-experiences through our senses.

When such exercises have been made for a sufficiently long
time, when we really attain to such a living way of thinking,
then something develops which may be designated as a plastic
form-giving, morphological way of thinking. Our thinking then
contains a living essence, it has a living content which can
ordinarily only be found in sense-perception. In that case we
begin to notice something new: What modern natural science
brings to the fore, is a source of regret to many, it
constitutes materialism. But Anthroposophy which aims through
its methods at penetrating into the super-sensible worlds, must
in a certain sphere become thoroughly
“materialistic,” stimulated in the right way
by modern science.

This is the case if we learn to strengthen our thinking in the
right way, if we can have before us, in imaginative thought,
images which are just as alive as sense-perceptions and with
which we deal just as freely as with sensory perceptions. When
we perceive something through our senses we know unmistakably
that we see Red or hear the note C sharp and that these are
impressions which come to us from the external world, not
impressions which rise out of our own soul. In the same way we
know through imaginative thinking that the images which rise up
before us are not empty phantasms produced by the soul, but
that they are a living essence within, resembling sensory
perception.

When we inwardly experience this emancipation from the
body, this freedom which also exists in sense-perception, we
also know what constitutes memory in ordinary life. When we
remember something, we always plunge into our physical body;
every memory-thought is connected with a parallel
physical or at least etheric bodily process. We learn to know
the material importance of that life which constitutes the
ordinary life of memory. We then no longer ascribe the contents
of memory to the independent soul, as does Bergson, the French
thinker, but we know that in the ordinary memory-process the
soul simply dives down into the body and that the body is the
instrument which conjures up our memories. Now we know that
only by imagination we reach the stage of being able to
think independently of the body, of being able to think in
ordinary life only with the soul, which we never do otherwise.
I n ordinary life we perceive through our senses, we abstract
our thoughts from the sensory perception and retain them in our
memory. But this process of retaining the thoughts in memory
implies that we dive down into our body.

Imaginative knowledge alone shows us the true process of memory
and that of sensory perception. Imaginative knowledge shows us
what it means to live in free thoughts, emancipated from the
body. It also shows us what it means to dive down into the
physical organism with our thoughts, when we remember
something. Even as we learn to know these things through an
intensification of thinking, through an enhancement and
strengthening of thought by meditation, so we may learn to know
through the will how to pass through a kind of
self-training which leads to similar results.

In
ordinary life, the will only acquires a certain value when it
passes over to external action; otherwise it remains mere
desire, even though we may cherish the highest ideals, the most
beautiful ideals, even though we may be true idealists. The
highest ideals will remain mere desires, if we are not able to
take hold of the external physical reality.

What characterises a desire, a wish? It has the
peculiar quality of being abstracted and withdrawn from
the world of reality. Symbolically one might say: When we only
have desires, this is like drawing back the feelers of the
soul. We then live completely within our own being, within the
soul-element. But we also know that desires are, to begin with,
tinged by the human temperaments. A melancholic person
will have desires which differ from those of a sanguine person.
The physical foundation of desires could soon be discovered by
those who investigate these matters conscientiously with the
aid of natural-scientific methods. The etheric foundation of
desires can therefore be seen in the temperament, but their
physical conditions can be perceived in the special composition
of the blood or in other qualities of the bodily
constitution.

This calls for that critical attitude mentioned at the
beginning of my lecture; such a critical attitude shatters, I
might say, many a pleasant dream. Allow me to give you a few
indications which show how such pleasant dreams can be
dispelled.

I
certainly do not mean to be irreverent, nor do I destroy any
ideal through lack of reverence, for I have a deep feeling for
all the beauty contained, for instance, in the mysticism
of a St. Theresa or of a St. John of the Cross. Do not think
that I am second to anyone in admiring all the beauty contained
in such mystical expressions. But those who have some
experience of the special way in which, for instance, St.
Theresa or St. John of the Cross produced their visions, know
to what extent human desires have a share in these visions.
They know that desires which live in the soul's depths have a
share particularly in mystical experiences, and these desires
may lead a spiritual investigator to study the bodily
constitution of these mystics. Nothing is desecrated when a
spiritual investigator draws attention to such things, when he
indicates that in certain organs he discovers an inner state of
excitement, that the nerves exercise a different influence on
certain organs, thus producing a certain effect in the soul,
which may even take on the beautiful aspect of the visions
described by St. John of the Cross or by St. Theresa, or by
other mystics of that type. We are far more on the right track
if we seek the foundation of such visions, which are so
beautiful and poetic in the case of St. Theresa and of St. John
of the Cross, in certain bodily conditions than in the
beholding of some nebulous mystery.

As
I have said I do not wish to pull to pieces something which I
revere as much as any other person in this room, but the truth
must be shown, and also the critical attitude derived from an
anthroposophical foundation. It must be shown that an
anthroposophist above all should not fall a prey to illusions.
Above all, he should be free from illusion in regard to human
desires which are rooted in the human organism, desires rooted
in the physical human organism which flare up, come, so to
speak, to boiling point, if I may use this expression, and lead
to the most beautiful visions.

A
person who wishes to become a spiritual investigator in the
anthroposophical sense, should not only strengthen his thinking
through meditation, but he should also transform his
desires through self-training.

This can be done by taking in hand systematically that
which otherwise takes place as if of its own accord. Let us
honestly admit that during our ordinary life we allow events to
guide us far more than we ourselves guide the course of our
life. In ordinary life this or that thing may influence us, and
if we look back ten years into our past earthly existence, we
find that the external conditions and the people whom we met,
unfolded within us a side of our character which now presents a
different aspect from what it was like ten years ago.

A
person who earnestly strives to become an anthroposophical
spiritual investigator must, in this connection, also make
exercises which influence the will. The ordinary will in
life acquires a meaning when directed towards external actions.
But an anthroposophical spiritual investigator must apply the
impulses of the will to his own development, to his own life.
He should be able to pursue the following aim: “In regard
to this or that characteristic or expression of life, you must
change, you must become different from what you were.”
Though it may seem paradoxical, it is a great help if we begin
to change something within us through our own initiative,
through our own impulse; if we change some strongly rooted
habit, or even a small trifle. I repeat that it can be
something quite insignificant, for instance, one's handwriting.
If someone really strives with an iron will to change his
handwriting, the application of energy required for the
transformation of a habit may be compared with the
strengthening of a muscle because the will is
strengthened. By growing stronger and by being applied inwardly
instead of outwardly, the will begins to exercise certain
influences in man. The transformations in the external world
once produced by the effects of the will, now become
transformations within human nature.

If
we do exercises of the will, as described in detail in
anthroposophical books, we reach the point of transforming our
life of desire, so that this becomes emancipated from the human
organisation, even as our thinking emancipates itself from the
body through meditation.

During the moments in which we live in anthroposophical
research, we are no longer in a condition which may be
described by saying that the wish is father to the thought.
When we exercise this self-training, this application of
education of oneself at a maturer age, our wishes and desires
become an inner power which unites with the emancipated
thinking. This leads us to a real perception of the true nature
of the will-impulses in ordinary life, and to a perception of
the true nature of thoughts in ordinary life. Even as we
ordinarily perceive red or blue, or hear C sharp or C, so we
now perceive thoughts as realities; we learn to know the
will-impulses objectively, that is to say, separated from our
own being.

In
this way we reach the point of having a right judgment of the
alternating conditions of waking and sleeping. Only by
rendering thought objective through exercise, as objective as a
sense-perception, so that we are no longer connected with our
body as in the case of a remembered thought, only with this
thinking developed in free meditation, can the act of falling
asleep be rightly grasped and perceived.

A
person who seeks to gain insight into the normal act of falling
asleep, with the aid of the ordinary cognitive forces, may set
up one hypothesis after the other, but he will not be able to
recognise the true nature of sleep.

This strengthened thinking which we acquire, and on the other
hand our transformed desires, are those which show us that when
we fall asleep we can, in a certain way, still follow the
moment in which sleep takes hold of us; we look, as it were,
upon the act of falling asleep and we learn to know that when
we go to sleep we do not simply have before us a changed bodily
condition, but that we really slip out of our body with our
independent soul-life; we go out of our body and we leave
something behind — namely, our thoughts.

We
can leave our thoughts behind consciously, when we fall
asleep, only because our thinking has been intensified. The
thoughts remain behind with the body and fill it in the shape
of formative forces. We notice that we have abandoned our body
only with our feeling and with our will. But by perceiving with
what part of the soul we leave the body, we obtain at the same
time an objective certainty that we have an independent
soul-essence and that we go out of the body with this
independent soul-essence.

And
now we know that what we leave behind on the bed on falling
asleep, is not only something which can be investigated by
physiology, anatomy and biology, but that it is permeated by
the web of thoughts, This web of our thoughts must first be
made strong enough, so that we can abandon it consciously, in
the same way as we consciously turn our face away from colours
and leave off looking at them. Through this strengthened
thought we know that we leave behind on the bed our physical
body and a body of forces containing thoughts which act like
forces; we leave these bodies behind so that they may exist
independently between falling asleep and waking up.

These thoughts, these morphological thoughts described to you
in recent lectures, exist in our ordinary consciousness only as
reflected images. They too have a reality, and with this
reality they fill out our physical body as a special etheric
body.

Now
we know that when we fall asleep we abandon our sensory body
and our thought body. (I might also say, the physical body and
the etheric body, or the physical body and the body of
formative forces). We abandon these bodies with our will and
with our feeling. In ordinary life our constitution does not
enable our consciousness to remain clear, it is not
strong enough to maintain consciousness unless it is filled out
by thoughts. Consciousness, such as we have it in ordinary life
and in ordinary science, must unite with the body and
experience within the body the thoughts of the body; only then
it is fully conscious. But when the soul goes out of the body
as mere feeling and will, we ordinarily become unconscious.

But
a person who attains to the imaginative thinking referred to
here recently, experiences the moment of falling asleep
consciously, and he can produce conditions which resemble
ordinary sleep, except that they are not unconscious, but that
forces are at work within him and that he can really experience
the organism of feeling and of the will; that is to say, he
really experiences that part of his being which can emancipate
itself from the body.

If
we thus learn to know the moment of falling asleep, we also
learn to know the moment of waking up. We now learn to judge
that the moment of waking up really consists of two parts: Our
attitude on waking up is the same as when a sense-impression is
produced. Whenever we wake up, something must stimulate the
soul. This need only be our own body, which has slept long
enough and which produces this stimulus in its changed
condition. But even as there is a stimulus in every sensory
impression, so there is always a stimulus when we wake up, and
this stimulus works upon our feeling, which left the body when
we fell asleep. Even as the eyes and the ears perceive colours
and sounds, so the emancipated soul now perceives through
feeling something which is outside; the moment of waking up is
a perception through feeling; we take hold of the body when we
wake up. The independent will takes hold of the physical
organism in the same way in which we ordinarily move an arm or
a leg. Waking up really consists of these two acts.

In
regard to falling asleep and waking up, we have now learned to
know the alternating connection between the independent soul
which leaves the body every night with its feeling and with its
will, and the conditions in which the soul lives from the
moment of waking up to the moment of falling asleep, when it is
united with the body. Anthroposophical investigation is
therefore based upon a strengthening of the capacities of
thinking and of the will, so that we are able to observe and
really perceive things which we ordinarily cannot perceive. And
if in this way we are able to perceive the alternating
conditions of sleeping and waking, we are then capable of
passing on to something else.

For
if we continue more and more in the exercises described in the
recent lectures and indicated in detail in the books already
mentioned we come to the point that we do not always fall
asleep when we leave the body, but that we can at will draw out
of the body our feeling and our will and really look back upon
the body. Then the human body is as objective as a desk or a
table in ordinary life. We learn to know a thing only because
we are no longer connected with it, no longer penetrated by it
subjectively, because it stands before us as an object.

The
object which stands before us when we go out of the body with
the will and with the feeling is above all the physical body.
To-morrow we shall see that this perception outside the body
gives us a new aspect of man's physical being. We perceive,
above all, the body of formative forces, consisting of a web of
thoughts, but active thoughts. We look back upon it as if it
were a mirror. And then we are confronted by the strange fact
that whereas formerly we were subjectively or personally
connected with our thoughts, we now face this world of thoughts
as if it were a photographic plate; in looking back upon our
body our thoughts stand before us like a photographic plate.
This is the same as the miniature reflection of the world which
we ordinarily have in our eye. Even as the eye is an organ of
sight through the fact that it can reproduce the world within
itself, so the etheric and the physical body which remained
behind, become a reflecting apparatus, where something becomes
reflected through the soul and spirit, whereas the eye only
gives us a physical reflection of something outside. By leaving
our thoughts behind in the physical body, we see through this
mirror not only the web of thoughts, but also the world.

The
course of soul-spiritual events can therefore be
described in detail, when the cognitive forces are intensified
through meditation and a self-training of the will, in order to
gain knowledge of the super-sensible worlds. Such a training
enables us to develop certain conditions in which we are
outside our body, but which do not resemble sleep; they
constitute something which is indicated in my books as the
continuity of consciousness. In higher knowledge we really go
out of the body with our emancipated soul-being. We can
recognise that we have left the body through the fact
that the mirror of thoughts is now no longer within us, but
outside. We go out of the body, yet we remain completely
self-conscious, as already explained.

We
are able to return into the body whenever we like; we do not
fall a prey to hallucinations or visions, but we can follow the
whole process with mathematical precision. Since the whole
process can be observed in this way, we are also able to judge
the ordinary events of earthly life when we return into the
body. Now we know what it is like to dive down into the body
with the emancipated soul. We not only learn to know the act of
falling asleep, when we abandon the body, but now we also learn
to return at will into our body with the emancipated soul.

It
leaves a special impression upon us when we once experience
this emancipated soul and then dive down again into the body,
so that the soul becomes imprisoned by the body. The
soul-spiritual world which was round about us when we were
outside the body, now ceases to exist for us. We feel as if
this world had vanished and that the body absorbs us as we dive
into it. We also learn to know what it is like to abandon the
body; we see how the thoughts go away from us, for they remain
with the body, and how we abandon the body with the feeling and
willing part of our soul. But in abandoning our body we feel at
the same time that the spiritual world begins to rise up before
us.

What knowledge have we now gained? Through the processes of
waking up and of falling asleep, we have learned to know birth
and death. We have experienced how the human being
unconsciously abandons his physical and etheric organism with
his feeling and with his will and how he returns into the body
when he wakes up in the morning.

When we have made the above-mentioned exercises, we grow
conscious where formerly we were unconscious, upon leaving our
body. In full consciousness we now experience in advance a
process which takes place when we die. And when we dive down
into our physical body on returning from the spiritual world,
when the thoughts outside vanish and once more appear as mere
images, asserting themselves within the personality as
something which is not real, then we learn to know the process
of birth.

Whereas the ordinary scientific methods content themselves with
the ordinary understanding, with ordinary thoughts which
are applied to external observations and experiments that
remain connected with us, anthroposophical investigation
transforms the personality by rendering thought objective and
by using the body as an all-embracing sense-organ. I might say
that the body becomes one large eye. This eye, however, is
outside and it is simultaneously a photographic plate.

The
world into which we penetrate through spiritual investigation,
the soul-spiritual world, now reflects itself in the external
world as thought. An insight into completely normal processes,
such as sleeping and waking, or birth and death, now enables us
also to attain an inner vision of the soul-world, we perceive
everything that pertains to the soul. Now our own
experience enables us to distinguish whether what Professor
Schleich designates as death through autosuggestion was
merely an unconscious representation, or whether what was
described by Sir Oliver Lodge, was “second
sight.”

We
can now recognise the attitude of a person who is not a
conscious spiritual investigator, but whose independent soul is
thrust out of the body by some abnormal conditions. This may be
due to some illness of the physical body. Let us suppose that
there is a lesion in an organ; this may be quite sufficient to
cause the soul-spiritual being of a person not yet capable of
independent spiritual vision to be driven out of the physical
body not because he falls asleep, but owing to a pathological
condition of the body, so that he now obtains an imperfect
perception of things which a spiritual investigator perceives
consciously and methodically.

We
need not deny the truth of the abnormal observations which are
interesting those people to-day who wish to go beyond the
sphere of ordinary, trivial facts. But we can look upon such
abnormal observations critically, and such a critical attitude
is due to the fact that the spiritual science of Anthroposophy
is not the caricature which many people suppose it to be, but
by awakening special spiritual forces and by fully recognising
the scientific conscientious method acquired by humanity in the
course of the past centuries, it endeavours to rise up to the
super-sensible worlds. And since the human being is connected
with the super-sensible worlds with the innermost, immortal
kernel of his being, spiritual investigation alone can
recognise man's mortal and immortal essence. This will be
explained more fully in to-morrow's lecture.

Through the fact that the human being dives down into his
eternal part, that he does not only build up an anthropology
transmitting a knowledge which can only be gained through the
physical body, but through the fact that he builds up an
Anthroposophy, transmitting a knowledge which man as
independent being, obtains through his soul and spirit, through
this fact the human being really learns to know the world in
its true aspect.

The
task of my next two lectures will be to describe the true being
of man, his immortal, everlasting being, and the true aspect of
the universe, from the stand-point indicated to-day.